Reumatología Clínica is the official publication of scientific Spanish Society of Rheumatology (SER) and the Mexican College of Rheumatology (CMR). Reumatología Clínica publishes original research papers, editorials, reviews, case reports and pictures. Published studies are primarily clinical and epidemiological research but also basic.

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CiteScore 2018

CiteScore measures average citations received per document published. Read more

CiteScore 2018

0.82

SRJ is a prestige metric based on the idea that not all citations are the same. SJR uses a similar algorithm as the Google page rank; it provides a quantitative and qualitative measure of the journal's impact.

SJR

0.363

SNIP measures contextual citation impact by wighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field.

Education is a major health determinant and one of the main independent outcome predictors in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The use of the Internet by patients has grown exponentially in the last decade.

Objective

To assess the characteristics, legibility and quality of the information available in Spanish in the Internet regarding to rheumatoid arthritis.

Material and methods

The search was performed in Google using the phrase rheumatoid arthritis. Information from the first 30 pages was evaluated according to a pre-established format (relevance, scope, authorship, type of publication and financial objective). The quality and legibility of the pages were assessed using two validated tools, DISCERN and INFLESZ respectively. Data extraction was performed by senior medical students and evaluation was achieved by consensus.

Results

The Google search returned 323 hits but only 63% were considered relevant; 80% of them were information sites (71% discussed exclusively RA, 44% conventional treatment and 12% alternative therapies) and 12.5% had a primary financial interest. 60% of the sites were created by nonprofit organizations and 15% by medical associations. Web sites posted by medical institutions from the United States of America were better positioned in Spanish (Arthritis Foundation 4th position and American College of Rheumatology 10th position) than web sites posted by Spanish speaking countries.

Conclusions

There is a risk of disinformation for patients with RA that use the Internet. We identified a window of opportunity for rheumatology medical institutions from Spanish-speaking countries to have a more prominent societal involvement in the education of their patients with RA.